The Conversation: The Great Typo Hunt

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson went on a cross-country mission, fixing typos in public signs. Along the way, they learned that grammatical errors are universal, and we all make mistakes.

Courtesy Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson

We've all seen misspelled signs on the highway, in stores and parks. In today's Conversation, ABC's John Berman chats with authors Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson -- two guys that decided to do something about it.

"Typos really get in the way of communications, which is the primary purpose of writing," Deck said.

Armed with their typo correction kit that included Sharpies, Wite-Out, pens and chalk, Deck and Herson traveled across America correcting the typos they saw along the way.

The Conversation: Inside the War on Typos

They traveled for two-and-a-half months, found 437 misspelled signs and were able to correct half of them. When they saw an error, they brought it to the owner's attention and offered to fix it.

But not everyone they approached was happy to have their mistakes pointed out to them.

"There were really a whole range of reactions: Some people got really defensive about it," said Deck. "There were certain cases where we just couldn't convince someone, no matter how much charm we threw at them, that they needed to fix the typo."